Every year I tell people this farm expression and today is a worthy day for this year’s installment: In farming some days you have to work outside and some days you get to work outside. Today is a get to day. However it is not a get to day to write a newsletter; it is a have to day. The sun is shining. The temperature is mild. There is a nice breeze to keep the mosquitoes away. So I spent the better part of the day getting to farm but now I am having to write the newsletter. But I figured I have to let people know we are still here – especially any of you locals who got the emergency signal about the tornado warning on your phones yesterday. So yes, we had no tornado. Nice rainbows though!
Not a whole lot new here on the farm. Everything is growing – including weeds. Sometime this week we start transplanting the fall vegetables. Hard to believe we are already looking toward the fall. But we are only on week four so there is plenty of season left. The difficulty we have with planting the fall veggies is that we already have enough to do with the harvesting, weeding and bug patrolling/eradicating. Adding in planting – and additional crops to weed – just makes it overwhelming. But we’ll manage to find the time somehow. We need to have these crops for our fall shares.
Overall everything else on the farm – for the most part – seems to be doing well. There are far fewer squash bugs than in any time in our history. I don’t know why that is. My two theories are: 1 – the cold winter, and/or 2 – the past effort we’ve put in to try to kill them these past many years. No matter the reason, having fewer squash bugs makes the squash plants healthier and happier. Summer squash is coming on strong!
The corn is tasseling and silking. Only a couple more weeks until we have sweet corn!
The tomatoes are growing, flowering and fruiting. Everything is still green but maybe in a couple weeks the fruit will be another color. Eggplants are just now starting as are the cucumbers. Both are looking quite good but will be in small quantities at least for this week. The peppers are doing well. It will be another month or so before we have any sweet peppers. Probably earlier for hot peppers. Next week we should be digging the potatoes. They are ready but the ground is too wet this week for us to dig them. Leaving them for another week will only give them time to get bigger.
Broccoli is coming on stronger. We will see broccoli these next several weeks. Cabbage is a couple weeks out. Cauliflower is three or more weeks still. Kohlrabi started last week and continues to ramp up. Kale is going out this week as is chard.
We are still harvesting snap peas. If we have more nice weather like today we will keep having snap peas. If it gets hot the peas will stop growing and die.
Carrots are looking good. We like to let them get bigger before we harvest them. Radishes are doing ok. Not the best but we are getting a reasonable amount.
The green beans plants are getting bigger but I haven’t seen any flowers yet. A bit surprising but I suspect we will see them soon. It is best if the beans wait until the peas are done since trying to harvest both is incredibly time consuming. The second planting of beans just emerged from the soil today.
Onions are looking good. We will continue to hand out the scallions/bunching onions and let the others grow larger. At least this week and maybe next week will be bunching onions. After that we may see some onion bulbs.
Garlic is looking good. We harvested all the scapes and will give them out over the next week or two.
One or two more weeks of lettuce.
The crops that aren’t doing well are the parsnips and the rutabagas. The rutabagas were attacked by flea beetles as they emerged from the soil. They never had a chance to grow before they were hit hard. I’m not sure if we will have any. We’ll have to wait to see. The parsnips didn’t germinate very well. I don’t know why. Maybe too wet and rotted. But I doubt we will see any parsnips this fall.
I should also mention the deer are thoroughly enjoying the edamame. I’ve seen a mama and two fawns. Hard to be mad at them — unless of course you realize there is 100+ acres of soybeans across the street they could be enjoying.
I think that pretty much covers the farm status. If there is a crop you are interested in that I didn’t mention let me know and I will fill you in on the details.
What will we have this week? Glad you asked. We’ll have lettuce, summer squash/zucchini, garlic scapes, broccoli, snap peas, kohlrabi, kale, chard, bunching onions and radishes.
Also this week we have FruitShare (blueberries!), CheeseShare, EggShare, MeatShare (for those who haven’t picked up their share yet), and FlowerShare.
Speaking of FruitShare: We’ll take back the blueberry pint containers. We use them for cherry tomatoes. Only send back pint containers that are the same as with the blueberry containers. Any other size becomes a nightmare to try storing. We’ll also take back the regular FruitShare boxes (not the blueberry flats). We use the boxes for tomatoes.
We are still taking orders for IceCreamShare. The signup sheet is in the tent. Details are in previous newsletters or ask me in the tent.